* TORAH WEEKLY *
Highlights of the Weekly Torah Portion
Parshas Behar-Bechukosai
For the week ending 22 Iyar 5759 / 7 - 8 May 1999
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Overview
Behar
The Torah prohibits normal farming of the Land of Israel every seven years.
This "Shabbos" for the land is called shemita. (5754 was a shemita year in
Israel.) After every seventh shemita, the fiftieth year, yovel (jubilee),
is announced with the sound of the shofar on Yom Kippur. This was also a
year for the land to lie fallow. Hashem promises to provide a bumper crop
prior to the shemita and yovel years to sustain the Jewish People. In the
year of yovel, all land is returned to its original division from the time
of Joshua, and all Jewish indentured servants are freed, even if they have
not completed their six years of work. A Jewish indentured servant may not
be given any demeaning, unnecessary or excessively difficult work, and may
not be sold in the public market. The price of his labor must be
calculated according to the amount of time remaining until he will
automatically become free. The price of land is similarly calculated.
Should anyone sell his ancestral land, he has the right to redeem it after
two years. If a house in a walled city is sold, the right of redemption is
limited to the first year after the sale. The Levites' cities belong to
them forever. The Jewish People are forbidden to take advantage of one
another by lending or borrowing with interest. Family members should
redeem any relative who was sold as an indentured servant as a result of
impoverishment.
Bechokosai
The Torah promises prosperity for the Jewish People if they follow Hashem's
commandments. However, if they fail to live up to the responsibility of
being the Chosen People, then chilling punishments will result. The Torah
details the harsh historical process that will fall upon them when Divine
protection is removed. These punishments, whose purpose is to bring the
Jewish People to repent, will be in seven stages, each more severe than the
last. Sefer Vayikra, the Book of Leviticus, concludes with the details of
erachin -- the process by which someone vows to give the Beis Hamikdash the
equivalent monetary value of a person, an animal, or property.
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Insights
___Clear as a Bell___
"Proclaim freedom throughout the land for all its inhabitants" (25:10)
On July 8, 1776, a chime that changed the world rang out from the tower of
Independence Hall in Pennsylvania. The Liberty Bell summoned citizens to
hear the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence by Colonel
John Nixon.
Some twenty years earlier the Pennsylvania Assembly had ordered the
making of the Bell to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of William Penn's
1701 Charter of Privileges.
The bell was inscribed with a verse from this week's parsha:
"Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof." As the bell was to commemorate the "jubilee" (from the Hebrew
yovel) of Penn's Charter, this quotation from the Bible was considered apt,
since the preceding line is "And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year."
One of the most famous aspects of the Liberty Bell is its crack.
When the Bell was hung for its trial ringing on March 10, 1753, Isaac
Norris wrote: "I had the mortification to hear that it was cracked...by a
stroke of the clapper."
The bell was melted down and recast. An ounce and a half of copper
per pound was added in an attempt to make the new bell less brittle.
On March 29, 1753, the new bell was raised into the belfry. Nobody
was too happy with the way it sounded. "It seems that they have added too
much copper."
This second bell also cracked. This crack grew and grew until
finally, on Washington's Birthday in 1846, it rendered the Bell "un-
ringable." To this day, on the Fourth of July, the Liberty Bell is "rung"
by being tapped symbolically.
If you think about it, it's amazing that a famous symbol should be
something so imperfect. More -- its very imperfection is part of its fame.
Sometimes, when we look at our lives, it's easy to be become
despondent. The clock seems to tick faster every minute. There is so much
to achieve, and we have done so little. More and more what seemed minor
imperfections in ourselves now appear to us as major character flaws. Will
we ever dominate our negative drives? Will we ever free ourselves from the
knee-jerk reactions of our lower selves and take the wheel of our lives in
accordance with the wishes of the Creator? It's easy to despair...
Maybe it's not by chance that it should be that a cracked bell
"proclaim freedom throughout the land." We're not perfect. All of us have
our cracks. But even the most flawed of us, even those whose merits do not
ring out like a bell, have the potential to proclaim freedom -- real
freedom. For real freedom is when we control our impulses rather than them
controlling us. We can only achieve that freedom, however, if we are
prepared to engrave deeply the words of the Torah on our hearts. The Torah
can make an impression even on the hardest heart of iron. Even the least
sensitive and the most forlorn of us will find that, if we are prepared to
engrave the Torah's words of liberty on our iron hearts, we will hear
freedom proclaimed like a bell throughout our lives.
___Day of the Land___
"I will make the Land desolate and your foes who dwell upon it will be
desolate... Then will the land be appeased for its sabbaticals during all
the years of desolation, while you are in the land of your foes; then the
land will rest and it will appease for its sabbaticals..." (26:32/35)
When the Jewish People fail to keep the laws of shemita and yovel -- the
Land of Israel's years of rest -- they are sent into exile. If they do not
let the land rest during their presence, it will rest during their absence.
Seventy violated Sabbatical years before and during the First Beis
Hamikdash era resulted in seventy years of Babylonian exile.
Prior to the Roman exile, Josephus Flavius testified to the abundance
in Eretz Yisrael: "For it is an extremely fertile land, a land of pastures
and many varieties of trees.... The entire land is planted by her
inhabitants and not one stretch of earth is left uncared for. Because the
Land is blessed with such goodness, the cities of the Galilee and numerous
villages are densely populated. Even the smallest of villages boasts of at
least 15,000 inhabitants."
In 1260, the Ramban (Nachmanides), writing to his son from Eretz
Yisrael, gave a very different picture: "What shall I tell you concerning
the condition of the Land... She is greatly forsaken and her desolation is
great... That of greater holiness is more desolate than that of lesser
holiness. Jerusalem is most desolate and destroyed."
Six centuries later, in 1867, Mark Twain found the Land in similar
condition: "A desolate land whose soil, though more than sufficiently
rich, produces only thorn bush and thistle -- a silent mourning expanse.
There exists here a state of neglect that even the imagination is incapable
of granting the possibility of beauty of life and productivity. We arrived
in peace to Mount Tabor...we did not see a soul during the entire
journey...everywhere we went there was no tree or shrub...." And Twain
wrote: "The Land of Israel dwells in sackcloth and ashes. The spell of a
curse hovers over her, which has blighted her fields and imprisoned the
might of her power with shackles." Twain saw the desolation as so great
that he wrote: "The Land of Israel is a wasteland...The Land of Israel is
no longer to be considered part of the actual world..."
Compare this quasi-post-nuclear scene with the Torah's dire warning:
"And the foreigner who will come from a distant land -- when they see
the plagues of the Land and the illnesses with which Hashem has inflicted
it; sulfur and salt, a conflagration of the entire Land, it cannot be sown
and it cannot sprout, and no grass shall rise up on it...And all the
nations will say `For what reason did Hashem do so to this Land?' "
(Devarim 29:21)
For centuries, the Christian church tried to make mileage out of the
above verse, claiming that the desolation of the Land of Israel was proof
that G-d had rejected the Jewish People. However, the Ramban points out
that the desolation of the Land is really a blessing in disguise. In this
week's parsha, the Torah says "I will make the Land desolate, and your foes
who dwell upon it will be desolate..." During all our exiles, our Land will
not accept our enemies. It will refuse to be fertile, so that no other
nation may settle in it. An army may conquer territory, but to establish a
permanent settlement requires the co-operation of the Land.
Maharsha writes: "As long as Israel does not dwell on its Land, the
Land does not give her fruits as she is accustomed. When she will begin to
flower again, however, and give of her fruits, this is a clear sign that
the end -- the time of the Redemption -- is approaching, when all of Israel
will return to its Land."
Eretz Yisrael is like a faithful wife told that her husband
languishes in a foreign jail from which he will never return.
Nevertheless, she waits for him, accepting no suitor in his place,
convinced that one day, he will return.
When we read of Mark Twain's description of the Land of Israel, it's
difficult for us to believe that he could be speaking of the Eretz Yisrael
that we know today, a land blooming and blossoming. Exported Israeli
fruit, vegetables and flowers grace tables around the world. Israeli
agricultural experts are sent to developing countries. The desert which
"is no longer to be considered part of the actual world" has become a most
beautiful garden.
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Sources:
* Day Of The Land - Talmud Shabbos 33a, Josephus Flavius - "The Jewish
Wars"; Ramban "Letter to his Son" 1260; Mark Twain "The Innocents Abroad
or the New Pilgrim's Progress" 1867
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Haftorah: Yirmiyahu 16:19 - 17:14
The weekly Torah portion describes the mishap to befall Israel if they do
not heed the Torah: the Haftarah predicts the calamity shortly before it
actually occurred. The reason for G-d's wrath is basically the worship of
idols and the lack of trust in the G-d of Israel. The passage also
contrasts the misfortune of one who does not have full belief and trust in
G-d to the success and bliss of the one who does.
___One Origin___
As mentioned, the causes of the first exile were idol-worship and lack of
trust in G-d. Both evolve from the same basis -- failure to believe in G-
d's Unity and Omnipotence. The belief in G-d's Omnipotence means He is the
sole true existence and is constantly sustaining the existence of the
creation. G-d has complete control; nothing happens without His will or
power. Consequently, there is no place for worshipping elements of the
creation as the pagans do, even though these icons symbolize certain powers
through which G-d sustains the world.
This belief brings us to the second concept, the concept of trust, as
this belief should bring us to have complete trust in G-d's ability to help
us in times of need.
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LOVE OF THE LAND
Selections from classical Torah sources which express the special
relationship between the People of Israel and Eretz Yisrael
ASHDOD
One of the five major Philistine cities, Ashdod was the site of the temple
of the idol Dagan, where the Holy Ark was brought after its capture from
the vanquished Israelites. In Shmuel I (5:1-8) there is a description of
the disgrace visited upon the idol, and the suffering of the city's
inhabitants, as punishment for their treatment of the Ark.
This perennial thorn in the side of Israel was the object of many
prophetic curses, and was finally conquered by King Uzzia of Judea (Divrei
Hayamim II 26:6).
Modern Ashdod, established in 1957, has one of the country's major
ports and is a growing city with a large immigrant population, religious
communities and yeshivot, alongside some large industries.
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